So what’s going to happen? Will bespectacled literary nerds have to choose between Chicago’s adopted son Ira and our old friend Stratford Billy? That’s like Prince Hal having to choose between getting drunk with Falstaff and cleaning up his act for his dad the king!

Be not afraid, gentles — reporter Lois Beckett is on it, with a retelling of King Lear specially updated for Ira Glass’s post-Renaissance storytelling sensibilities. It’s This American Lear.